-NRLF 


f 

THE  LEGEND  ARYAND  MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN 
HISTORIES  OF- THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 


SECOND  AND  REVISED  EDITION 


BY  SYDNEY  G.  FISHER,  LL.l). 


Reprinted  from 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY 
Vol.  LI.  No.  204,  April-June,  1912. 


FROM    THE    PRESIDENT'S    OFFrr£ 
TO  THE  UNIVT^SITY  LIBRARY 


THE  LEGENDARY  AND  MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS   IN 
HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION. 

BY  SYDNEY  G.  FISHER. 
(Read  April  18,  1912.} 

Having  taken  the  trouble  some  years  ago  to  examine  the  great 
mass  of  original  evidence  relating  to  the  American  Revolution,  the 
contemporary  documents,  pamphlets,  letters,  memoirs,  diaries,  the 
debates  in  parliament  and  the  evidence  obtained  by  its  committees, 
I  found  that  very  little  use  of  it  had  been  made  in  writing  our 
standard  histories,  works  like  those  of  Bancroft,  Hildreth,  Fiske, 
which  have  been  the  general  guides  and  from  which  school  books 
and  other  compilations,  as  well  as  public  orations,  are  prepared. 

Others  have  made  the  same  discovery  and  have  been  over 
whelmed  with  the  same  astonishment.  About  fifteen  years  ago  Mr. 
Charles  Kendall  Adams,  astonished  at  what  he  found  in  the  original 
evidence,  wrote  an  article  on  the  subject  published  in  the  Atlantic 
I  Monthly  (Vol.  82,  page  174),  ridiculing  the  standard  histories  for 
having  abandoned  the  actualities  and  the  original  evidence.  Our 
whole  conception  of  the  Revolution,  he  said,  would  have  to  be  al 
tered  and  the  history  of  it  rewritten.  Within  the  last  year  or  two 
Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  has  made  the  same  discovery  and  in 
his  recent  volume  "  Studies  Military  and  Diplomatic  "  has  attacked 
the  historians  with  even  greater  severity  and  rewritten  in  his  usual 

Reprinted  from  Proceedings  American  Philosophical  Society ',    Vol.  /£,  1912. 


380046 


54  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS   IN  [April  18, 

trenchant,  luminous  and  captivating  style,  a  considerable  portion  of 
that  history.  His  essays  on  the  military  strategy  of  the  Revolu 
tion  are  contributions  of  permanent  value,  refreshing  and  ennobling, 
because  they  substitute  truth  and  actuality  for  the  mawkish  sen 
timentality  and  nonsense  with  which  we  have  been  so  long  nauseated. 

Minor  investigations  like  recent  works  on  the  Loyalists  by  Flick, 
Van  Tyne,  Ryerson  and  Stark,  also  Bartlett's  "Destruction  of 
the  Gaspee,"  Judge  Horace  Gray's  essay  on  the  "  Writs  of  Assist 
ance,"  publications  like  the  Hutchinson  Letters,  the  Clinton-Corn- 
wallis  Controversy,  have  of  course  helped  to  bring  about  this 
change.  The  general  improvement  in  public  libraries,  in  accessibil 
ity  to  the  old  pamphlets  and  original  evidence  of  all  sorts,  has  also 
helped  and  led  to  a  desire  for  knowledge  of  the  actual  events. 
Lapse  of  time,  too,  is  no  doubt  having  its  effect  in  lessening  the 
supposed  inadvisability  of  letting  all  about  the  Revolution  be  known. 

Within  the  last  two  years  in  writing  a  life  of  Daniel  Webster  I 
had  occasion  to  examine  the  original  evidence  of  our  history  from 
the  War  of  1812  to  the  Compromise  of  1850;  and  I  found  that  it  had 
substantially  all  been  used  in  our  histories  of  that  period.  There 
was  no  ignoring  of  it  or  concealment  of  it  such  as  I  had  found  when 
I  investigated  the  original  evidence  of  the  Revolution.  It  is 
strange  at  first  sight,  that  the  history  of  our  Civil  War  of  1861 
should  -have  all  its  phases  so  openly  and  thoroughly  exhibited, 
the  side  of  the  South  as  well  as  the  side  of  the  North,  both  fully 
displayed  to  the  public,  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the  evidence 
of  the  Revolution  should  be  concealed.  But  the  circumstances  of 
the  Revolution  were  quite  different. 

In  the  first  place,  the  large  loyalist  party  in  this  country,  in  some 
places  a  majority,  were  so  completely  defeated,  hunted  down,  ter 
rorized,  driven  out  of  the  country  and  scattered  in  Canada  and 
various  British  possessions,  that  to  use  a  vulgarism  they  never 
"opened  their  heads"  again.  It  is  only  in  recent  times  that  any 
one  has  had  the  face  to  collect  their  evidence  and  arguments  from 
the  original  sources  and  publish  it.  For  more  than  half  a  century 
after  the  Revolution  no  writer  could  gain  any  thing' but  condemna 
tion  and  contempt  for  mentioning  anything  about  them.  The  sue- 


J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  PHILADELPHIA 


The  Struggle 

for 

American  Independence 


By 

SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 


Author  of 'The  True  History  of  the  American  Revolution"  "The  True 

Benjamin  Franklin,''9  "Men,  Women,  and  Manners 

of  Colonial  Times,"  Etc. 


Seventeen  full  page  Illustrations  of  Historical  Interest  and  sixteen  maps. 

Crown  8vo.    Over  1100  pages.    Two  volumes  in  a  box. 

Handsome  cloth,  with  gilt,  $4.00  net,  per  set. 


A  Comprehensive  History  of  the  whole  Revolutionary 

Movement  from  the  original  evidence  of 

records  and  eye  witnesses 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS 


'c  He  has  actually  written  one  of  the  most  refreshing  and  stimulat 
ing  histories  of  the  Revolution  that  we  have  seen.  He  has  taken  a 
large  view  of  a  large  subject,  has  explored  it  with  painstaking, 
honest  effort,  and  has  written  a  book  that  will  be  enjoyed  even  by 
those  most  inclined  to  dissent  from  its-  conclusions." 

The  Outlook,  New  York. 

"It  will  be  found  that  he  has  given  a  far  truer  picture  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  than  any  of  his  predecessors  in  the  study  of 
that  most  fateful  period  in  British  and  American  history." 

The  Globe,  Toronto. 

"  There  is  set  forth,  with  patient  and  diligent  exposition  and  a 
constant  reference  to  the  documentary  evidence  and  literary  authori 
ties  upon  which  it  is  based,  a  profoundly  interesting  account  of  the 
American  Revolution,  not  merely  as  a  war  but  also  as  a  continuous 
movement  establishing  upon  the  American  continent  political  ideas 
and  principles  which  are  not  yet  entirely  accepted  in  Europe. 

The  book  will  be  read  with  profit  and  advantage  by  all  sorts  of 
students  of  American  history."  The  Scotsman,  Edinburgh. 

"  Mr.  Fisher's  style  is  limpid  and  lucid,  his  narrative  is  interesting, 
and  since  he  quotes  his  authorities  page  by  page  his  novel  thesis 
will  not  readily  be  dismissed. 

His  volumes  cannot  be  overlooked  by  any  one  who  wishes  to  be  well 
informed  upon  the  origins  and  fundamentals  of  our  nation  or  the 
future  of  England's  colonial  relations." 

Times  Saturday  Review,  New  York. 

11  Mr.  Fisher  has  gradually  worked  his  way  into  the  front  ranks  of 
the  living  American  historians."  The  Oregonian,  Portland. 


i9».]        HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION.  57 

It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  remember  that  Charles 
Thomson,  the  Secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress  during  the 
Revolution,  wrote  a  history  of  that  event;  and  his  position  and 
acquaintance  with  leading  characters  must  certainly  have  given  him 
valuable  information.  But  he  burnt  the  manuscript,  giving  as  a 
reason  that  its  publication  would  give  too  much  offense  to  persons 
still  living.  He  wished  to  quiet  down  everything,  forget  the  horrible 
scenes,  controversies  and  factions,  and  build  up  the  country.  Cer 
tainly  a  most  laudable  motive;  but  we  must  not  now  in  these  days 
be  misled  by  it  and  accept  as  history  all  those  standard  volumes 
which  when  analyzed  are  nothing  but  concealment  of  actual  facts 
for  the  sake  of  helping  the  nation. 

We  must  hasten,  however,  to  the  third  cause  of  the  trouble,  and 
that  was  that  the  first  history  of  the  Revolution  which  all  the  others 
have  followed  and  copied  was  an  English  whig  partisan  argument. 

The  English  whig  party  were  in  a  peculiar  position  during  the 
Revolution,  with  a  rebellion  on  hand  that  seemed  likely  to  rend 
the  British  empire  asunder.  They  were  in  a  very  small  minority, 
overwhelmingly  outvoted  on  every  subject.  They  adopted  as  their 
policy  for  the  American  War,  the  principle,  or  rather  supposition, 
that  if  the  troops  were  all  withdrawn  from  the  colonies  and  no  at 
tempt  made  to  coerce  them,  the  Americans  would  voluntarily  sub 
mit  to  be  ruled  by  England  and  form  an  ideal  spectacle  of  uncoerced 
colonies  willingly  and  gladly  remaining  under  the  tutelage  of  their 
mother. 

It  was  a  beautiful  ideal  as  developed  by  the  great  whig  orators, 
Burke,  Chatham  and  Barre,  illustrated  from  history  and  art,  and 
dignified  by  passionate  appeals  to  sentiment  and  manhood.  Their 
speeches  have  become  classics  of  the  English  language  and  have  been 
recited  for  a  hundred  years  by  our  school  boys.  Those  orations 
with  others  by  the  lesser  whig  lights  to  be  found  in  the  parliamen- 
tar}'  debates,  together  with  the  whole  whig  policy,  were,  of  course, 
very  acceptable  to  our  people.  The  whigs  were  continually  asserting 
that  our  people  did  not  want  independence ;  they  besought  mild  and 
conciliatory  measures  for  us ;  they  attacked  the  tory  measures ;  and 
so  far  as  they  succeeded  in  checking  in  this  way  the  tory  policy  of 
coercion,  they  aided  us  in  obtaining  independence. 


58  FISHER— M^  fH-MAKING   PROCESS   IN  [April  18, 

This  history  of  the  Rev  >lution  from  the  whig  point  of  view  was 
written  almost  as  rapidly  as  the  events  occurred,  not  only  in  the  whig 
speeches,  but  in  the  Annual  Register,  an  important  publication  of 
that  time,  still  in  existence,  which  summed  up  the  political  and 
diplomatic  occurrences  of  the  year  both  at  home  and  abroad  as  they 
affected  England.  After  the  Revolution  was  ended  and  people 
began  to  think  of  writing  an  account  of  it,  they  found  that  it  was 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  do.  Just  get  down  the  volumes  of 
the  Annual  Register  and  there  it  all  was  for  each  of  the  seventeen 
years  of  the  long  controversy;  each  year  by  itself  clearly  and  co 
gently  written;  for  the  Annual  Register  had  employed  the  great 
whig  orator  Edmund  Burke  to  write  these  summaries  every  year. 
Burke  was  very  careful  with  his  dates,  facts  and  statements  so  far 
as  he  chose  to  go  and  the  Register  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  in  that 
respect.  But  the  statements  were  all  whig  statements;  no  others 
were  admitted;  no  facts  unfavorable  to  the  whig  line  of  policy  were 
admitted;  and  every  fact  and  statement  was  given  the  tinge  and 
leaning  of  the  whig  policy. 

Those  summaries  running  for  seventeen  years  in  the  Register 
and  the  speeches  of  the  whig  orators  were  the  material  that  the 
early  historians  of  the  Revolution  used.  Gordon,  who  wrote  the 
first  important  and  widely  read  history  of  the  Revolution,  copied 
page  after  page  of  the  Register  verbatim  and  says  so  in  his  preface 
to  the  first  English  edition.  Those  whig  speeches  and  summaries 
gave  the  tone,  the  point  of  view  and  the  limitations,  and  fixed  them 
so  rigidly  that  the  great  mass  of  evidence  outside  of  those  limita 
tions  has  always  been  rejected;  and  when  now  obtruded  on  the  pub 
lic  in  even  the  mildest  form,  is  received  with  staring  and  sometimes 
indignant  incredulity. 

I  am  certainly  very  glad  that  the  whigs  adopted  the  line  of 
policy  that  has  been  described.  It  was  a  great  help  to  our  cause; 
and  it  may  have  been  good  for  the  whig  party  or  at  any  rate  the 
best  they  could  do  under  the  circumstances.  But  to  make  that  mere 
partisan  position  the  basis  and  limitation  for  writing  history  is  the 
rankest  absurdity  that  was  ever  heard  of.  Even  as  a  political  policy, 
the  whig  plan  was  a  mere  dream  that  could  never  be  carried  out  in 


i9«.]        HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION.  59 

practice.  It  was  a  legal  and  political  impossibility  and  contrary  to 
common  sense.  There  was  no  such  thing,  there  never  was  and  there 
never  will  be  such  a  thing  as  a  community  of  Americans  voluntarily 
submitting  to  the  absolute  supremacy  of  a  parliament  three  thousand 
miles  across  the  Atlantic.  The  tory  majority  tried  a  large  part  of 
the  whig  plan  without  success.  They  tried  conciliation  and  found 
it  a  failure.  They  repealed  the  stamp  act  and  the  paint,  paper  and 
glass  act  very  early  in  the  controversy.  They  made  no  attempt  to 
enforce  either  act  with  troops  and  had  scarcely  any  troops  in  the 
country  at  that  time.  But  the  colonists,  instead  of  becoming  more 
submissive,  felt  more  conscious  of  their  power  and  became  more 
independent.  In  1778  the  tories  offered  to  repeal  practically  all 
objectionable  legislation  and  make  a  compromise  that  would  be 
just  short  of  absolute  independence;  but  the  American  patriots 
rejected  this  offer  as  they  had  rejected  all  other  attempts  at  concilia 
tion  that  did  not  offer  absolute  independence. 

If  the  whigs  had  been  in  power  during  the  revolution  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  they  would  have  been  any  more  successful 
in  conciliating  the  Americans  than  were  the  tories ;  and  it  is  probable 
that  they  would  not  even  have  attempted  to  put  their  idealism  into 
practice.  In  the  Canadian  rebellion  of  1837  they  were  in  power, 
but  they  suppressed  that  rebellion  with  a  high  hand,  hanged  and 
banished  the  ringleaders,  did  not  withdraw  troops,  and  did  not  rely 
on  voluntary  submission.  Their  idealism  in  the  Revolution  was 
mere  minority  eloquence.  It  is  one  thing  to  advocate  an  ideal  theory 
when  you  are  in  a  hopeless  minority  and  not  responsible  for  results, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  put  such  a  theory  in  force  when  you  are 
in  the  majority  and  in  power  which  you  wish  to  retain. 

The  whig  partisan  policy  is  such  a  narrow  point  of  view  for 
writing  history,  that  in  order  to  maintain  it  and  stay  within  it  you 
must  leave  out  of  consideration  and  either  conceal  or  ignore  more 
than  half  the  evidence  and  testimony  of  the  eye  witnesses  and  con 
temporary  documents  of  the  Revolution.  You  must  write  the  Revo 
lution  merely  as  the  English  whigs  saw  it,  or  professed  to  see  it  for 
party  purposes.  You  must  omit  large  masses  of  evidence  that  have 
been  found  in  both  America  and  England.  You  must  ignore  the,..] 


60  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  1 8, 

testimony  and  arguments  of  the  tories  who  from  the  point  of  view 
of  impartial  history  are  entitled  to  exactly  the  same  consideration 
as  witnesses  as  the  whigs  and  patriots.  You  must  ignore  and  vilify 
the  testimony  and  arguments  of  the  loyalists,  who,  if  history  is  to  be 
anything  more  than  falsehood  agreed  upon,  are  entitled  to  exactly 
the  same  consideration  as  witnesses  as  the  patriots,  whigs  and  tories. 

The  whig  point  of  view  ignores  completely  the  whole  mass  of 
evidence  coming  from  the  tories  and  the  loyalists  and  does  not  accept 
all  the  evidence  coming  from  the  patriots.  As  the  whigs  were  al 
ways  trying  to  show  that  the  patriot  party  in  America  did  not  really 
want  independence,  but  would  be  content  with  a  compromise,  they 
accepted  no  evidence  that  did  not  accord  with  that  view. 

All  through  the  Revolution  the  English  whigs  sneered  at  the 
loyalists,  rejected  all  their  statements,  and  were  only  a  step  behind 
the  patriots  in  condemnation  of  them.  It  seems  now  a  little  con 
temptible,  this  merciless  whig  condemnation  of  the  loyalists  who 
were  trying  to  save  the  same  empire  which  the  whigs  professed  to 
have  a  remedy  for  saving.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  when 
the  treaty  of  peace  was  signed,  a  section  of  the  whig  party  shifted 
their  ground,  took  up  the  cause  of  the  loyalists  and  attacked  the 
ministry  for  making  a  treaty  of  peace  which  abandoned  the  loyalists 
to  the  mercy  of  the  patriots. 

If  you  confine  yourself  to  the  whig  limitation,  you  must  not  only 
ignore  the  great  mass  of  information  about  the  loyalists,  but  you 
must  also  ignore  the  military  strategy  of  the  war,  scarcely  noticed 
in  our  histories,  but,  as  Mr.  Adams  shows,  almost  as  important 
and  interesting  as  the  campaigns  of  Napoleon. 

The  great  controversy  over  General  Howe's  motives  and  military 
conduct  fills  the  first  three  years  of  the  evidence  of  the  war  appear 
ing  in  pamphlets,  letters  and  charges  against  him  and  finally,  in  the 
voluminous  evidence  of  his  trial  or  investigation  by  Parliament. 
This  great  mass  of  evidence  about  Howe,  very  familiar  to  the  people 
of  that  time,  but  unnoticed  in  our  histories,  gives  us  entirely  new 
views  and  ideas  of  the  situation.  Another  controversy  carried  on 
with  the  greatest  acrimony  between  Clinton  and  Lord  Cornwallis 
and  also  unnoticed  in  our  histories,  gives  us  an  entirely  new  un 
derstanding  of  the  last  three  years  of  the  war  and  its  final  issue. 


i9i2.]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  61 

Then  there  is  much  unused  evidence  about  the  actual  position  and 
services  of  France,  not  to  mention  Spain,  and  Holland.  There  is  the 
evidence  about  the  violation  of  the  navigation  and  trade  laws,  and 
about  the  admirality  courts.  There  are  scores  of  old  pamphlets 
which  show  the  actual  arguments  exchanged  between  the  two  coun 
tries  on  the  constitutional  power  of  Parliament  in  the  argumentative 
period  of  the  contest  1764-1774.  These  pamphlets  are  in  many 
respects  the  most  important  of  all  sources  of  evidence.  There  were, 
no  newspapers  in  those  days  giving  argumentative  articles  or  edi 
torials  after  the  manner  of  modern  Journalism.  Everything  of  that 
sort  was  to  be  found  only  in  the  pamphlets,  and  the  pamphlets 
penetrated  everywhere,  reached  the  remotest  communities  and  were 
read  in  the  humblest  homes.  The  pamphlet  was  the  means  of  arous 
ing  all  classes.  The  foundation  principles  of  the  contest  on  both 
sides  are  to  be  found  in  the  old  pamphlets ;  but  like  the  other  evidence 
our  standard  histories  fail  to  bring  them  to  light  and  explain  their 
meaning. 

The  standard  histories  give  us  no  adequate  understanding  of  the 
dozen  acts  of  Parliament  which  the  patriot  colonists  wished  repealed. 
They  never  explain  the  full  meaning  of  that  demand  of  the  colonists 
that  England  should  never  keep  soldiers  in  a  colony  in  time  of  peace, 
except  by  the  consent  of  the  colony,  that  England  should  not  change 
or  amend  a  colonial  charter  except  by  the  consent  of  the  colony. 
They  do  not  even  explain,  they  hardly  even  notice  the  demand  by 
the  patriots  that  Parliament  should  have  no  authority  in  the  colonies 
or  in  relation  to  them  except  to  regulate  ocean  commerce.  They  do 
not  explain  what  the  colonists  meant  when  they  said  that  they  were 
willing  to  be  ruled  by  the  king  alone.  They  do  not  compare  these 
demands  with  the  modern  British  colonial  system  to  see  whether 
any  of  them  have,  in  modern  times,  been  accepted  by  England  as 
proper  methods  of  colonial  government. 

The  most  curious  fact  about  the  whig  and  Annual  Register 
method  of  writing  our  history  is  that  in  the  end  the  English  tories 
accepted  it  as  the  safest  and  best  way  of  describing  the  old  contro 
versy.  Most  of  the  evidence  relating  to  the  Revolution  was  a  very 


62  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

serious  matter  for  Englishmen  to  handle,  no  matter  whether  their 
political  views  were  tory  or  whig.  England  still  had  colonies,  ex 
pected  to  have  more  and  to  go  on  building  up  a  great  and  obedient 
colonial  empire.  The  whigs  in  their  way  believed  in  that  empire 
as  much  as  the  tories  and  gladly  accepted  all  the  profits  and  advan 
tages  of  it.  Would  it  be  wise  for  English  writers,  whether  tory, 
whig  or  "  impartial,"  to  tell  the  English  people  that  the  American 
patriot  party  had  from  the  beginning  hated  and  detested  what  is  to 
this  day  the  foundation  principle  of  the  British  empire,  namely,  the 
supremacy  of  Parliament  as  absolute  and  omnipotent  in  every  colony 
as  it  is  in  London;  that  they  despised  colonialism  from  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts;  that  they  believed  it  to  be  unmanly  and  degrading 
political  slavery,  and  that  the  only  definition  of  a  colony  that  they 
accepted,  was  one  which  described  a  community  like  the  old  Greek 
colonies,  sent  out  by  a  mother  country  with  the  intention  that  it 
should  become  absolutely  independent,  and  that  the  mother  coun 
try's  only  duty  towards  it  would  be  to  protect  it  from  other  nations 
and  guarantee  its  independence. 

That  an  English  writer  should  describe  the  Revolution  in  this 
way  and  be  compelled  to  admit  that  the  American  patriots  had 
broken  away  from  the  British  empire  because  they  despised  its  foun 
dation  principle,  was,  and  is,  a  great  deal  to  expect  of  English  nature 
or  of  human  nature.  Neither  English  tories  nor  whigs  care  to  de 
scribe  the  Revolution  as  it  occurred ;  and  it  is  hardly  fair  to  expect 
them  to  do  it.  Why  should  they  deliberately  excite  their  present 
colonies  and  their  great  and  profitable  East  Indian  empire  to  rebel 
and  justify  their  rebellion?  Is  it  not  evidently  much  better  to 
say  with  the  whigs  that  the  American  patriots  dearly  loved 
England  and  the  British  empire;  that  they  were  contented,  dutiful 
and  obedient  colonists;  that  they  were  not  only  perfectly  willing 
but  anxious  to  remain  in  the  empire  and  share  its  profits  and 
glory  of  world  wide  conquest;  that  their  leaving  the  empire  was  a 
mere  accident  brought  about  by  the  blindness,  stupidity,  and  wicked 
ness  of  a  certain  tory  ministry,  or,  as  some  later  writers  have  put  it, 
by  the  blindness,  stupidity  and  self-will  of  the  King,  George  III., 
who  of  himself,  against  the  wishes  of  his  ministry,  parliament,  and 


i9".]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN   REVOLUTION  63 

the  English  people,  drove  the  Americans  crit  of  the  empire,  when 
they  were  perfectly  willing  to  stay  within  it  ? 

The  first  important  history  of  the  Revolution  after  Burke's 
annual  summaries  in  the  Register,  was  a  four-volume  work  by 
John  Andrews,  LL.D.,  published  in  1786.  It  follows  the  same 
lines  as  Burke's  essays  in  the  Annual  Register,  except  that  it  gives 
much  space  to  stating  both  sides  of  the  arguments  in  Parliament, 
but  in  such  a  tiresome,  verbose  way,  that  it  is  almost  unreadable. 
Andrews  had  no  historic  ability,  no  interpretative  power;  was  a 
mere  dull  chronicler  and  summarizer.  He  cites  no  evidence  or  au 
thorities,  and  keeps  on  the  safe  side  of  mere  ordinary  dates  and 
events.  The  great  mass  of  actual  evidence ;  the  position,  the  doings, 
the  arguments  of  the  loyalists,  the  causes  which  led  to  the  Revolu 
tion,  the  real  conditions  in  America,  the  navigation  and  trade  laws, 
the  strategy  of  battles,  the  controversy  over  General  Howe's  conduct 
of  the  war,  his  trial  before  Parliament,  the  Clinton-Cornwallis  con 
troversy  over  the  final  strategy — these  and  a  host  of  other  actuali 
ties  one  would  never  learn  anything  about  from  the  pages  of  John 
Andrews,  LL.D. 

In  1787  a  very  ambitious  and  laborious  account  of  the  Revolu 
tion  appeared  by  the  Rev.  William  Gordon,  an  English  whig  and 
Congregationalist  minister,  who  had  come  out  to  Massachusetts 
early  in  the  difficulties  and  remained  with  us  all  through  the  Revolu 
tion,  interviewing  generals  and  prominent  men,  visiting  battlefields, 
examining  private  papers  and  public  records  and  collecting  notes  and 
materials.  When  the  war  ended  he  returned  to  England  and  wrote 
his  history. 

He  was  not  altogether  liked  in  America.  John  Adams  said  he 
talked  too  much,  and  that  his  history  in  attempting  to  favor  both 
sides  was  a  failure.  But  he  seems  to  have  been  trusted  with  im 
portant  papers  and  he  was  unquestionably  very  painstaking  and 
accurate.  Many  of  the  papers  which  he  examined  in  manuscript, 
notably  in  the  year  1775,  have  been  published  in  the  American  Ar 
chives  and  confirm  his  statements.  No  one  has  given  us  a  iTitter 
detailed  contemporary  account  of  the  battles  of  Fort  Miffliit  and 
Red  Bank.  But  he  had  no  historic  ability.  He  follows  the  A\ 


64  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

Register  as  a  basis  for  a  great  part  of  his  information,  copying 
from  it  without  changing  the  language,  and  announces  in  his  preface 
that  he  has  done  so.  He  stays  cautiously  within  the  whig  limits  of 
safety  already  described.  The  remaining  British  colonies  would  not 
be  stirred  to  rebellion  by  anything  he  says.  But  as  a  chronicler  who 
lived  amidst  the  events  of  the  Revolution,  his  work  is  of  some  value 
as  a  piece  of  original  partisan  evidence. 

In  1789  Dr.  Ramsay  of  South  Carolina,  who  had  written  about 
the  Revolution,  in  his  own  State,  brought  out  a  general  history  of 
the  Revolution,  which  strange  to  say,  rejected  in  some  respects  the 
guidance  of  the  whigs  and  the  Annual  Register  and  in  this  respect 
stands  alone.  He  seems  to  understand  that  the  dispute  between 
America  and  England  was  irreconcilable  and  could  never  have  been 
settled  by  conciliation.  He  does  not  regard  England's  conduct 
toward  the  colonies  as  a  mere  mistake  of  a  ministry,  nor  does  he 
regard  it  as  the  affair  of  the  king,  but  as  a  deliberate  movement  of 
an  overwhelming  majority  in  Parliament  heartily  supported  by  the 
aristocracy,  the  county  gentry  and  the  ruling  classes,  to  consolidate 
the  empire  and  bring  the  colonies  under  stricter  regulations.  He 
showed  that  under  the  old  system  the  colonists  had  grown  accus 
tomed  to  semi-independence  and  now  were  bent  on  absolute  inde 
pendence.  But  his  method  of  writing  was  so  obscure  and  tedious 
and  he  gave  himself  so  little  room,  that  his  book  could  never  have 
much  effect. 

Any  influence  he  might  have  had  was  soon  overwhelmed  and 
forgotten  by  the  historical  works  of  a  writer  of  the  highest  order  of 
popularity,  and  in  that  sense  and  influence  the  ablest  "historian  we 
have  ever  produced.  Prescott,  Motley  and  Parkman  are  mere  chil 
dren  when  compared  with  him. 

The  truth  is  that  Americans  had  no  book  about  their  great  polit 
ical  events  that  was  easy  to  read  until  1800  when  the  Reverend 
Mason  L.  Weems  came  to  their  rescue  with  his  "Life  of  Wash 
ington,"  followed  by  lives  of  Franklin  and  Marion.  Parson  Weems, 
as  he  was  called,  was,  it  is  said,  a  preacher  of  large  family  and 
slender  means,  who  had  charge  of  a  church  in  Virginia  near  Mount 
Vernon.  To  support  his  family  he  became  a  travelling  book  agent 


i9«.]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  65 

for  Matthew  Carey,  of  Philadelphia.  He  wrote  books  of  his  own 
and  sold  them  in  his  wagon  journeys  through  the  country.  He  was 
ready  with  a  sermon,  an  harangue,  or  a  stump  speech,  wherever  he 
could  draw  a  crowd;  and  he  would  then  recommend  his  wares  and 
sell  them  from  his  wagon.  He  played  well  on  the  fiddle  and  was 
in  demand  at  social  gatherings  and  dances.  He  must  have  been  an 
entertaining  fellow  in  his  way  and  I  should  like  to  have  seen  him 
on  some  of  his  tours  through  the  south. 

For  a  generation  and  more,  his  books,  especially  his  "Life  of 
Washington,"  had  an  enormous  sale  and  went  through  over  forty 
editions.  They  were  necessarily  histories  of  the  revolution.  His 
ideas  on  that  event  reached  every  corner  of  the  country  and  every 
class  of  life;  and  the  publishers  tell  me  his  "Life  of  Washington" 
still  sells.*  Reckless  in  statement,  indifferent  to  facts  and  research, 
his  books  are  full  of  popular  heroism,  religion  and  morality,  which 
you  at  first  call  trash  and  cant  and  then,  finding  it  extremely  enter 
taining,  you  declare  with  a  laugh,  as  you  lay  down  the  book,  what  a 
clever  rogue.  I 

to  refrain  from  quoting  from  him.  f  He  is  a  most 


delightful  mixture  of  the  Scriptures,  Homer,  Virgil  and  the  back 
woods.  Everything  rages  and  storms,  slashes  and  tears.  At  the 
passage  of  the  stamp  act  "the  passion  of  the  people  flew  up  500 
degrees  above  blood  heat."  In  battle  Americans  and  English  plunge 
their  bayonets  into  one  another's  breasts  and  "  fall  forward  together 
faint,  shrieking  in  death  and  mingling  their  smoking  blood."  Here 
is  his  description  of  Morgan  at  the  last  battle  of  Saratoga. 

"  The  face  of  Morgan  was  like  the  full  moon  in  a  stormy  night  when  she 
looks  down  red  and  fiery  on  the  raging  deep,  amidst  foundering  wrecks  and 
cries  of  drowning  seamen  ;  while  his  voice  like  thunder  on  the  hills  was  heard 
loud  shouting  his  cavalry  to  the  charge." 

"  Far-famed  Brittanica,"  says  Weems  "  was  sitting  alone  and 
tearful  on  her  Western  cliff,  while,  with  downcast  looks,  her  faith 
ful  lion  lay  roaring  at  her  feet."  And  we  must  have  one  more  from 
his  description  of  the  Battle  of  the  Cowpens. 

"As  when  a  mammoth  suddenly  dashes  in  among  a  thousand  buffaloes, 
feeding  at  large  on  the  vast  plains  of  Missouri;  all  at  once  the  innumerous 


66  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

herd,  with  wildly  rolling  eyes  and  hideous  bellowings,  break  forth  into  flight, 
while  close  at  their  heels  the  roaring  monster  follows.  Earth  trembles  as 
they  fly.  Such  was  the  noise  in  the  chase  of  Tarleton,  when  the  swords  of 
Washington's  cavalry  pursued  his  troops  from  the  famous  fields  of  the 
Cowpens." 

/  It  is  in  vain  that  the  historians,  the  exhaustive  investigators,  the 
learned,  and  the  accurate  rail  at  him  or  ignore  him.  He  is  inimi 
table.  He  will  live  forever.  He  captured  the  American  people. 
He  was  the  first  to  catch  their  ear.  He  said  exactly  what  they 
wanted  to  hear.  He  has  been  read  a  hundred  times  more  than  all 
the  other  historians  and  biographers  of  the  Revolution  put  together. 
He  fastened  his  methods  so  firmly  upon  the  country  that  the  learned 
historians  must,  in  their  own  dull  and  lifeless  way,  conform  as  far 
as  possible  to  his  ideas  or  they  will  be  neither  read  nor  tolerated.* 

Out  of  the  social,  genial,  card^playing,  fox-hunting  Washington, 
Weems  manufactured  the  sanctimonious  wooden  image,  the  Sunday 
school  lay  figure,  which  Washington  still  remains  for  most  of  us,  in 
spite  of  all  the  learned  efforts  of  Owen  Wister,  Senator  Lodge  and 
Paul  Leicester  Ford.  Weems  was  a  myth-maker  of  the  highest  rank 
and  skill  and  the  greatest  practical  success.  (  Of  the  Revolution' itself 
/  he  made  a  Homeric  and  Biblical  combat  of  giants,  titans  and  mam 
moths  against  the  unfathomable  corruption  and  wickedness  of  about 
a  dozen  dragons  and  fiends  calling  themselves  King  and  Ministry  in 
England./ 

1  He  goes  back  wholly  to  the  whigs  and  the  Annual  Register.  The 
people  of  England,  everyone  on  that  blessed  island,  except  the  dozen 
ministerial  fiends,  were,  he  assures  us,  a  noble,  kindly,  gentle  race. 
He  knew  them  well ;  he  had  lived  among  them  when  he  studied 
theology;  and  they  did  not  make  war  on  the  Americans.  They 
would  not  have  thought  of  such  a  thing;  they  disapproved  of  the  war. 
As  for  the  American  colonists,  though  giants  and  mammoths  when 
aroused,  they  were  also  a  gentle  people,  most  loving  and  obedient  to 
the  mother  country,  anxious  to  remain  with  her,  had  not  war  been 
cruelly  made  upon  them. 

And  why  then  was  cruel  war  made  upon  them?     Simply,  says 
Parson  Weems,  because  "the  king  wanted  money  for  his  hungry 


i9".]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  67 

relations  and  the  ministers  stakes  for  their  gaming  tables  or  diamond 
necklaces  for  their  mistresses."   ' 

There  it  is  in  its  crudest  form,  the  ministerial  explanation  of  the 
Revolution,  the  most  popular,  short,  easy  and  practical  explanation 
of  the  great  event  that  could  be  devised.  It  reveals  nothing  about 
the  real  issue  at  stake  between  the  two  countries ;  nothing  about  the 
question  of  the  supremacy  of  Parliament  or  the  other  great  principles 
involved.  But  it  pleased  vast  numbers  of  people  because  as  ex 
pressed  by  Weems,  they  could  grasp  it  instantly ;  it  appealed  to  their 
suspicions  of  what  the  effete  monarchies  across  the  Atlantic  really 
were.  Expressed  in  different  language  with  a  few  political  and 
more  refined  ideas  substituted  for  the  diamond  necklaces  and  hungry 
relations,  it  pleased  the  half  loyalist  element  which  still  remained  in 
the  country,  and  it  pleased  a  certain  class  among  the  patriots  who 
wanted  to  be  able  to  admire  England,  her  literature,  her  laws,  her 
social  customs,  the  charming  lives  of  her  country  gentry,  the  hedge 
rows  and  green  fields,  and  the  fashion  of  London.  They  could 
admire  and  love  all  these  things,  have  social  pleasures  with  distin 
guished  Englishmen,  talk  about  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  its  glories 
and  conquests,  and  yet  remain  true  Americans,  because  the  Revolu 
tion  had  been  a  mere  ministerial  war,  a  ministerial  accident,  uncon 
nected  with  the  rest  of  England  and  such  an  accident  could  never 
happen  again. 

'  We  might  dispose  of  nearly  all  the  subsequent  histories  of  the 
Revolution  by  saying  that  they  followed  along  in  this  short  and  easy 
method.  I  Even  Chief  Justice  Marshall  in  his  Life  of  Washington 
published  in  1804,  though  once  or  twice  disposed  to  break  away,  trots 
along  in  the  same  old  rut. 

In  1809  quite  a  popular  history  of  the  Revolution  appeared  in 
French,  which  went  through  twenty  editions  in  Europe.  It  was 
written  by  Charles  Botta  of  Northern  Italy,  who  had  been  a  surgeon 
in  the  French  army,  and  was  appointed  by  Napoleon  on  the  commis 
sion  to  govern  the  Italian  republic  he  established.  It  was  made  up, 
the  author  himself  tells  us,  from  the  Annual  Register,  other  histories, 
the  parliamentary  debates  and  pamphlets.  But  it  is  all  Annual  Reg- 
ister  and  so  dull  that  a  modern  reader  has  difficulty  in  getting  through 


68  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  x8, 

a  single  chapter.  The  American  translation  went  through  ten  edi 
tions.  Adams  and  Jefferson,  who  were  still  alive,  praised  it  highly. 
The  popularity  of  such  a  tedious  compilation  is  hard  to  understand, 
unless  it  was  that  our  people  were  pleased  because  it  was  a  French 
and  Italian  defence  of  our  Revolution  and  institutions. 

'Hildreth's  "History  of  the  United  States,"  published  in  1849, 
devoted  parts  of  the  third  and  fourth  volumes  to  the  Revolution. 
It  was  a  carefully  written  work,  in  much  better  style  than  its  prede 
cessors,  and  is  still  pleasant  to  read,  but  is  a  conventional  chronicle 
within  the  established  lines.  / 

It  was  quickly  followed  by  two  other  histories,  one  by  Lord 
Mahon  and  one  by  George  Bancroft.  Lord  Mahon,  afterwards  Lord 
Stanhope,  was  a  man  of  distinction  in  English  politics  and  literature, 
founder  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  and  closely  associated  with 
the  amendment  of  the  English  copyright  law  and  the  Historical 
Manuscripts  Commission.  His  "History  of  England  from  1713  to 
1783  "  came  out  a  volume  at  a  time,  between  the  years  1836  and 
1853.  In  the  last  three  of  the  seven  volumes  it  touched  upon  the 
Revolution.  It  was  the  first  account  of  that  great  event  written  in  a 
style  of  any  literary  merit;  and  Lord  Mahon's  style  possessed  great 
merit.  Without  the  slightest  attempt  at  the  eloquence  or  rhetoric 
supposed  by  some  to  be  necessary  for  history,  he  relies  on  mere 
clearness  and  aptness  of  words  to  convey  the  ideas  of  a  very  culti 
vated  and  intelligent  mind.  Every  page  of  it  is  interesting  and  is 
likely  to  remain  so  for  all  time.  As  a  history  of  England  it  is  full 
of  information,  especially  of  the  prominent  characters  of  the  time; 
but  as  an  account  of  our  Revolution,  it  touches  only  the  surface.  He 
goes  no  deeper  than  to  say  that  the  loss  of  the  colonies  was  a  mere 
accidental  piece  of  foolishness  on  the  part  of  the  ministry;  and 
having  started  with  that  position  his  pleasing  narrative  keeps  within 
the  lines  of  safety. 

f  In  1852  Bancroft's  "  History  of  the  United  States  "  reached  the 
Revolutionary  period./  It  had  been  coming  out  a  volume  at  a  time 
since  1832.  Bancroft  was  of  Massachusetts  origin  and  studied  in 
Germany  where,  perhaps,  he  over-educated  and  over-Germanized 
himself.  He  traveled  extensively,  met  distinguished  men,  became 


i9i2.]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  69 

Secretary  of  the  Navy  and  founded  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annap 
olis.  He  was  also  minister  from  the  United  States  to  England  and 
to  Germany.  It  was  a  splendid  experience  and  one  would  naturally 
expect  from  him  something  of  broader  gauge  than  his  very  cramped, 
and  bitter  parisan  account  of  the  Revolution. 

/  It  was  the  most  violently  partisan  and  timorously  defensive  his 
tory  of  the  Revolution  that  had  appeared.  It  was  most  cautiously 
written,  with  the  greatest  dread  of  the  slightest  admission,  and  with 
intense  straining  to  make  out  a  perfect  case.  I  Entirely  devoid  of 
candor,  his  fierce  assaults  on  the  character  of  Governor  Hutchin- 
son,  his  assignment  to  him  of  every  contemptible  motive,  his  sweep 
ing  condemnation  and  ignoring  of  the  loyalists,  and  his  omission  of 
everything  that  did  not  support  the  English  whig  theory,  have  made 
his  work  more  violently  and  narrowly  one-sided  than  the  partisan 
pamphlets  of  the  period  of  which  he  was  writing. 

His  early  volumes  dealing  with  the  discovery  of  the  continent 
and  the  colonial  period  were  much  better  than  those  relating  to  the 
Revolution.  He  restored  to  remembrance  many  important  points  in 
colonial  history  which,  for  want  of  an  adequate  account  had  been 
forgotten.  But  in  the  Revolution  he  became  merely  a  scholarly 
Weems,  carrying  to  exaggeration  the  worst  features  of  Weems  and 
Botta. 

In  his  treatment  of  the  Writs  of  Assistance,  he  declaims  against 
the  decision  of  the  Massachusetts  court  allowing  them,  as  contrary 
to  the  law  and  the  constitution  and  cowardly  subserviency  to  the 
British  Government.  But  the  decision  was  perfectly  sound  law,  as 
Judge  Gray  of  the  Supreme  Court  shows  in  his  admirable  investi 
gation  of  the  subject;  and  until  we  recognize  it  as  sound  and  inves 
tigate  from  that  point  of  view,  we  shall  never  get  any  farther  in  the 
history  of  the  Revolution  than  mere  demagoguism  and  declamation. 
J  In  his  volumes  on  the  colonial  period,  Bancroft  made  in  footnotes 
a  number  of  citations  to  the  original  evidence,  and  some  when  he 
reached  the  Revolution.  But  those  for  the  Revolution  were  very 
inadequate ;  and  in  subsequent  editions,  for  his  work  had  a  wide  cir 
culation,  the  citations  for  the  Revolutionary  part  grew  less  and  less 
until  in  the  end  they  disappear  almost  altogether,  and  he  gives  no 


70  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

references  for  his  innumerable  quotations.^  His  researches  for  mate 
rial  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe  are  described  by  his  friends 
as  the  most  remarkable  ever  made.  Documents  and  sources  of  in 
formation  closed  to  all  others  were,  we  are  assured,  open  to  him. 
But  strange  to  say,  we  see  no  result  of  this  in  his  published  work. 
Nor  can  any  subsequent  investigator  profit  by  his  labors;  the  won 
drous  and  mysterious  sources  of  information  remain  mysterious; 
and  many  of  his  opinions  are  difficult  to  support  with  the  evidence 
which  investigators  are  able  to  find. 

'This  practice  of  not  giving  the  evidence  in  footnote  citations  has 
been  characteristic  of  all  our  histories  and  is,  indeed,  quite  necessary 
and  proper  when  the  essential  principle  is  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  original  evidence  must  be  ignored,  j  The  habit  of  citation  once 
begun  might  be  carried  too  far. 

/  Fiske,  whose  volumes  on  the  Revolution  have  been  published 
since  the  Civil  War,  makes  no  citations  of  the  original  evidence.  I 
Possibly  he  has  forestalled  criticism  in  this  respect  by  the  statement 
in  the  preface  to  his  illustrated  edition,  that  his  work  is  a  mere  his 
torical  sketch.  But  it  is  two  volumes  containing  some  seven  hun 
dred  pages,  confident  and  positive  in  tone.  For  the  sources  of  his 
material  he  refers  us  to  Winsor's  "  Hand  Book  of  the  Revolution," 
and  the  notes  of  the  "  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America." 
But  he  might  just  as  well  have  referred  us  to  the  card  catalogues  of 
the  public  libraries.  Such  a  general  reference  means  nothing;  and  a 
very  large  part  of  the  material  contained  in  Winsor's  "  Hand  Book  " 
and  in  the  "Narrative  and  Critical  History"  is  made  up  of  com 
mentaries  on  the  Revolution,  which  are  becoming  more  and  more 
numerous  as  time  goes  on.  We  have  not  yet  learned  in  this  country 
to  distinguish  sharply  between  the  original  evidence  and  the  subse 
quent  commentaries.  Our  histories  are  usually  written  from  the 
commentaries  which  are  numerous,  more  accessible,  more  full  of 
suggestion  of  all  sorts,  and  easier  to  write  from  and  understand  than 
the  original  evidence. 

Fiske's  account  of  the  Revolution  was,  however,  superior  to  all 
previous  histories  because  it  contains  practically  all  that  Bancroft 
and  the  rest  contain  much  better  expressed.  It  would  be  difficult  to 


i9".l          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  71 

improve  on  Fiske's  style  of  writing  for  clearness,  beauty  and  read- 
ableness.  Bancroft  attempted  the  old-fashioned  rhetorical  style, 
which,  in  his  hands,  ran  to  turgidity  and  bombast.  Oratorical  dig 
nity,  the  style  that  has  been  so  often  applied  with  success  to  Greek 
and  Roman  history,  is  probably  inadequate,  in  any  hands,  to  the 
economical,  legal  and  constitutional,  the  prosaic,  plebeian  and  demo 
cratic  struggle  which  took  place  in  America.  Lord  Mahon's  style 
was  far  better  than  the  classic  oratorical ;  and  Fiske's  is  the  best  of  all. 

Fiske  was  an  extreme  admirer  of  Gladstone,  the  English  liberal 
party,  its  predecessor  the  whig  party,  and  the  whole  system  of  the 
British  empire.  At  almost  every  step  he  brings  in  this  admiration 
for  England ;  "  her  glorious  records  of  a  thousand  years,"  and  her 
dominion  "  on  which  the  sun  shall  never  set."  If  Gladstone  had 
been  alive  in  1776  he  and  Washington  would  have  settled  the  whole 
difficulty  amicably,  the  English  speaking  race  would  not  have  been 
divided,  and  the  United  States  would  in  some  wonderfully  sweet 
way  have  remained  British  colonies  and  part  of  the  British  empire, 
the  great  civilizer  of  the  world.  That  is  the  keynote  of  his  history; 
and  it  is  all  written  within  that  limitation.  No  one  has  so  glorified 
and  enlarged  the  old  whig  and  Annual  Register  idea. 

He  limits  himself  and  narrows  his  point  of  view  still  more  by 
assigning  the  obstinacy  of  the  king  and  his  love  of  personal  govern 
ment  as  the  cause  of  all  the  difficulty.  The  king  deceived  and  forced 
the  ministry,  Parliament  and  the  English  people,  and  kept  them 
deceived  and  forced  during  eleven  years  of  argument  and  eight  years 
of  war. 

This  one-man  explanation  of  great  political  events  is  a  cheap  and 
easy  historical  device  of  very  wide  application.  It  is  very  dramatic 
and  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  very  telling  and  interesting.  Fiske 
varies  it  and  makes  it  more  dramatic  by  assuring  us  that  the  person 
who  put  the  wickedness  into  the  head  of  George  III.  was  Charles 
Townshend. 

That  is  a  very  pretty  and  interesting  touch,  to  have  Mephistoph- 
eles  whispering  in  the  ear  of  the  one  man.  Botta,  who  also  had 
the  one-man  idea,  said  that  the  devil  who  did  the  whispering  was 
Lord  Bute.  And,  indeed,  the  devil  might  be  varied  indefinitely, 


72  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

because  there  were  so  many  people  suggesting  those  ideas  at  that 
time.  The  editor  of  the  Boston  Gazette  may  have  been  the  devil; 
for  Townshend's  main  idea  can  be  found  in  the  pages  of  that  journal 
long  before  Townshend  promulgated  it.  If  Mr.  Fiske  and  his  fol 
lowers  will  admit  that  there  were  many  million  devils  comprising  the 
majority  of  the  Parliament  and  people  of  England,  together  with  the 
loyalists  in  America  all  whispering  and  some  talking  very  loudly,  for 
tne  encouragement  of  George  III.,  the  one-man  theory  will  become 
comparatively  harmless. 

If  modern  comprehensive  investigation  aided  by  improved  libra 
ries  and  collections  has  established  anything,  it  is  that  the  prominent 
or  great  individuals,  while  undoubtedly  valuable,  are  more  apt  to  be 
the  results  and  outcome  of  political  movements  than  the  causes  of 
them.  The  Revolution  was  a  world  movement  forced  on  by  the 
thoughts  of  millions  of  people.  Its  beginnings  extend  far  back  of. 
1764,  and  George  III.  merely  swam  in  the  current.  In  the  face  of 
all  the  accumulated  evidence  of  its  workings,  to  assign  the  responsi 
bility  for  it  to  one  man  may  do  well  enough  for  eulogistic  biography 
or  oratory;  but  is  hardly  admissible  in  history,  if  history  is  to  be  any 
thing  more  serious  than  the  latest  novel. 

Lecky's  "  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century "  of 
course  touches  slightly  on  our  Revolution  and  here  we  certainly  have 
a  man  of  strong  intellect  dealing  with  the  subject.  As  might  be 
expected  he  kicks  over  the  traces  and  refuses  to  be  bound  by  the 
ridiculous  limitations  of  the  school  of  Bancroft  and  Fiske.  We  find 
him  stating  the  point  of  view  of  the  loyalists,  describing  their  large 
numbers  and  the  factious  turmoil  of  the  times  with  that  refreshing 
boldness,  impartiality  and  instinctive  love  of  truth  which  have  made 
the  author  of  the  "  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe  "  one  of  the 
heroes  of  civilization  and  a  terror  to  ecclesiastical  humbugs.  He 
cites  his  authorities  in  footnotes  like  a  real  historian ;  he  deals  largely 
with  the  original  authorities;  and  one  can  learn  more  about  those 
authorities  in  his  brief  account  than  from  all  previous  histories  of 
the  Revolution  put  together.  Unfortunately,  however,  he  deals  with 
our  Revolution  only  incidentally,  touching  on  it  and  coming  back 
to  it  again  farther  on.  To  have  gone  into  it  thoroughly  would  have 


'PI*.]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  73 

thrown  his  work  out  of  proportion.  His  sound  method,  therefore, 
does  not  have  chance  and  space  enough  to  bring  to  the  surface  all 
that  should  be  brought. 

The  same  can  be  said  of  Moses  Coit  Tyler's  strong  book  on  the 
"  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution."  He  too  kicks 
over  the  traces,  and  states  the  loyalist  side.  But  he  is  limited  by 
his  subject  even  more  than  Lecky;  and  his  work  not  being  an  out 
and  out  history  of  the  Revolution  he  stops  far  short  of  dealing 
with  all  the  original  evidence. 

In  recent  years  another  history  of  the  Revolution,  not  yet  com 
pleted,  but  very  voluminous,  by  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  has  been 
appearing  in  England,  a  volume  at  a  time.  Mr.  Trevelyan  is  remem 
bered  for  his  admirable  "Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,"  pub 
lished  nearly  forty  years  ago  and  for  his  subsequent  life  of  admira 
tion  of  Charles  James  Fox,  the  brilliant  whig  orator  in  Parliament  at 
the  time  of  our  Revolution.  The  life  of  Fox  treated  only  of  that 
statesman's  early  years ;  and  in  his  preface  to  the  history  Mr.  Treve 
lyan  explains  that  he  finds  he  can  write  the  rest  of  Fox's  life  only 
by  writing  a  history  of  the  American  Revolution  about  which  Fox 
so  often  spoke  in  Parliament. 

It  hardly  accords  with  an  American's  idea  of  the  dignity  of  that 
event  to  see  it  regarded  as  mere  illustrative  material  for  the  biogra 
phy  of  a  very  reckless  and  insolvent  gambler,  who,  however  able  he 
may  have  been  as  a  minority  speaker  in  Parliament,  and  however 
interesting  he  may  still  be  to  all  of  us,  was  by  no  means  the  most 
effective  statesman  England  has  produced.  Our  sense  of  proportion 
is  somewhat  outraged  by  the  exaltation  of  the  gambler  through  six 
volumes  of  the  American  Revolution,  with  more  to  come. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  confessed  that  from  a  literary  point 
of  view,  and  in  Mr.  Trevelyan's  skilful  hands,  the  sacrifice  of  his 
tory  to  an  overestimate  of  a  picturesque  character  keeps  his  readers 
interested  and  amused.  The  volumes  are  full  of  anecdote,  remi 
niscence,  political  and  literary  gossip  of  the  intellectual  sort ;  and  the 
best  parts  of  the  work  are  the  descriptions  of  English  life  and  con 
ditions  in  that  age.  The  diffuseness  of  the  style  seems  to  an  Amer 
ican  less  suitable  to  history  than  Fiske's  matchless  brevity  and  ease, 


74  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

and  it  is  far  inferior  in  intellect,  keenness  and  humor  to  the  style  of 
Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams.  But  Mr.  Trevelyan  is  a  delightful 
master  of  telling  idioms,  and  clever  phrasing,  which  have  placed  him 
where  he  is  in  English  literature. 

He  is  a  distinguished  member  of  the  English  liberal  party  and 
this,  with  his  natural  sympathy  for  that  party's  predecessors,  the  old 
whigs,  and  for  his  picturesque  gambler,  combined  with  the  necessity 
for  not  saying  anything  to  impair  modern  British  control  of  colonies, 
forces  his  book  into  the  most  narrow  form  of  the  Weems  minis 
terial  explanation. 

As  an  attack  upon  the  tory  ministry  of  that  period,  nothing  prob 
ably  will  ever  equal  the  accumulated  force,  the  massing  of  details, 
the  sweeping  condemnation  and  the  charm  of  language  of  Mr.  Treve- 
lyan's  work.  The  unfortunate  ministry  is  overwhelmed  and  buried 
under  a  mass  of  disapprobation  that  exceeds  in  weight  and  volume 
all  that  Fox  and  all  that  all  the  other  whig  orators  ever  said  against 
them.  Every  fact,  every  inference,  every  delicate  insinuation  that 
lapse  of  time,  historical  perspective  and  the  labor  of  years  can  bring 
together,  is  heaped  upon  them.  Their  depravity,  malignity,  and  stu 
pidity  are  unspeakable,  especially  when  contrasted  with  the  enlight 
ened  virtue  and  perfection  of  Fox  and  the  whigs.  It  is  perfectly 
obvious  that  the  American  colonies  were  lost  merely  by  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  cruelty  and  absurdity  of  this  extraordinary  min 
istry,  the  like  of  which  in  infamy  has  never  been  known  before  or 
since.  That  is  all  there  is  in  the  American  Revolution ;  and  it  is  also 
quite  evident  that  if  the  plans  of  Fox  and  the  whigs  had  been  carried 
out  those  affectionate  and  long-suffering  colonists  who  dearly  loved 
the  British  empire  would  have  remained  in  it  in  some  ideal  and 
friendly  relation,  which  is  not  definitely  described. 

Mr.  Trevelyan  is  not  impressed  by  the  difference  between  the 
original  contemporary  evidence  and  the  subsequent  innumerable 
commentaries  or  secondary  authorities.  He  cites  one  as  readily  as 
the  other;  and  his  investigations  into  the  original  evidence  appear 
to  have  been  very  moderate.  He  ignores  the  greater  part  of  it. 
The  secondary  authorities  suit  him  better,  because  they  support  the 
ministerial  explanation.  Except  for  the  descriptions  of  English 


i9i2.]          HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  75 

life  and  manners,  his  work  is  largely  made  up  from  the  commenta 
tors.  It  is  melancholy  that  a  man  of  so  much  talent  should  sur 
render  himself  body  and  soul  to  this  old  stupidity  of  forever  re 
writing  the  Revolution  from  the  accumulating  opinions  of  commen 
tators,  which  move  farther  and  farther  away  from  the  evidence; 
and  now  Mr.  Trevelyan's  six  or  a  dozen  volumes  must  be  thrown 
into  the  mass  to  be  re-hashed  for  another  progress  away  from  the 
original  evidence. 

Within  the  last  year  or  so,  however,  there  has  appeared  an  Eng 
lish  history  of  the  Revolution  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Belcher,  which  shows 
a  most  decided  familiarity  with  the  original  evidence  and  an  equally 
decided  determination  to  jump  out  of  the  old  whig  and  Annual  Reg 
ister  rut.  He  is  the  first  Englishman  since  Lecky's  time  who  has 
been  willing  to  admit,  that  there  is  a  great  mass  of  loyalist  evidence. 
He  gives  his  book  an  entirely  correct  title  and  calls  it  "  The  First 
American  Civil  War."  He  is  rather  an  interesting  and  clever  phrase- 
maker,  after  the  manner  that  has  been  popular  in  England  for  some 
time.  But  he  runs  on  too  much  into  mere  political  gossip,  unrelated 
details,  and  his  book,  in  consequence,  lacks  logical  sequence;  an 
inevitable  defect,  some  will  say,  in  a  man  of  religion.  But  no  matter 
about  that,  and  no  matter  about  his  taking  a  very  John  Bull  point 
of  view,  and  safeguarding  John's  face  and  colonial  possessions.  He 
has  jumped  out  of  the  old  rut.  He  is  in  the  original  evidence;  and 
for  that  heaven  be  praised  even  if  he  only  flounders  in  it. 

Since  the  above  paragraph  was  written  my  attention  has  been 
called  to  an  article  in  Blackwood's  Magazine- (March,  1912,  p.  409). 
attacking  with  very  considerable  severity  and  ridicule  the  absurdity 
of  continuing  to  write  the  history  of  the  American  Revolution 
from  the  narrowness  of  the  old  whig  point  of  view.  It  is  mere 
"  senseless  panegyric,"  the  writer  says.  As  a  piece  of  history  "  it 
belongs  to  the  dark  ages;"  it  represents  the  views  of  the  desperate 
whigs  which  will  never  again  be  expressed  by  a  serious  historian. 

Another  good  sign  of  the  times  is  Mr.  Channing's  "  History  of  the 
United  States,"  the  third  volume  of  which  deals  with  the  Revolution 
in  a  scientific  spirit.  In  a  similar  way  the  volumes  by  Mr.  Howard 
and  by  Mr.  Van  Tyne  in  "  The  American  Nation  "  show  an  appreci- 


76  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING  PROCESS  IN  [April  18, 

ation  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  evidence,  and  a  very  considerable 
disregard  of  the  old  whig  limitations. 

Why  be  so  scared  and  timorous  about  the  original  evidence,  and 
why  conceal  it?  After  the  first  plunge  and  shock  of  the  cold  water 
is  over,  you  will  enjoy  it.  The  real  Revolution  is  more  useful  and 
interesting  than  the  make  believe  one.  The  actual  factions,  divisions, 
mistakes,  atrocities,  if  you  please,  are  far  more  useful  to  know  about 
than  the  pretense  that  there  were  none.  The  real  patriots  who  hated 
colonialism  and  alien  rule  in  any  form  and  who  were  determined  to 
break  from  the  empire  no  matter  how  well  it  governed  them,  are 
more  worthy  of  admiration  than  those  supposed  "  affectionate  colo 
nists,"  who,  we  are  assured,  if  they  had  been  a  little  more  coddled  by 
England,  would  have  kept  America  in  the  empire  to  this  day. 

There  has  recently  been  some  discussion  in  the  newspapers  on 
the  hopelessness  of  all  efforts  to  make  good  plays  or  even  good  novels 
out  of  the  scenes  of  our  struggle  for  independence.  Why  should 
our  Revolution,  it  is  asked,  be  so  totally  barren  in  dramatic  incident 
and  dramatic  use  and  some  other  revolutions  so  rich  in  that  use  ? 
May  it  not  be  because  our  Revolution  has  been  so  steadily  and  per 
sistently  written  away  from  the  actual  occurrences,  that  novelists  and 
play  writers  when  they  search  for  material  find  a  scholastic,  academic 
revolution  that  never  happened  and  that  is  barren  of  all  the  traits 
of  human  nature  ? 


i9X3.]         HISTORIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION.  55 

cessful  party  in  America  would  not  even  vilify  them,  but  ignored 
them  and  their  doings  as  if  they  had  had  no  existence.  The  object 
of  this  was  to  make  it  appear  that  the  Revolution  had  been  a  great 
spontaneous  uprising  of  the  whole  American  people  without  faction 
or  disagreement  among  themselves.  In  England,  strangely  enough, 
the  loyalists  were  also  ignored  and  nothing  said  about  them.  They 
were  often  suspected  of  being  half  rebels,  "whitewashed  rebels" 
as  they  were  sometimes  called.  Those  who  fled  to  England  were 
apt  to  be  treated  with  more  or  less  contempt.  They  were  often 
regarded  as  mere  objects  of  charity,  "lick  pennies"  as  one  of  them 
complained,  or  at  best  as  mere  provincials  of  neither  social  nor 
political  importance. 

But  at  the  close  of  our  Civil  War,  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  remained  in  the  country,  were  respected  by  the  North  as  well 
as  by  the  rest  of  the  world,  published  their  side  of  the  controversy 
and  again  sent  their  representatives  to  Congress  as  they  had  done 
before  the  war.  No  one  has  as  yet  dared  to  falsify  or  conceal  the 
facts  of  that  history  or  turn  it  into  myths  and  legends. 

In  the  second  place,  after  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  we  were 
for  a  long  time  a  very  disunited  country.  It  was  very  doubtful 
whether  the  States  would  be  able  to  come  together  and  form  a  na 
tional  government.  Many  thought  that  some  of  them  might  go 
back  under  British  control.  When  a  national  constitution  was  at 
last  adopted,  it  was  regarded  by  the  rest  of  the  world  and  even  by 
ourselves,  as  an  experiment  which  very  likely  might  not  in  the  end 
succeed.  In  Europe,  it  was  largely  regarded  as  a  ridiculous  experi 
ment.  Our  democratic  ideas  and  manners  were  despised  and  our 
newness  and  crudeness  contrasted  with  the  settled  comfort  and  re 
finement  of  the  old  nations.  We  felt  all  this  keenly.  Our  writers 
and  able  men  struggled  might  and  main  to  unite  our  people  and  build 
up  a  nation.  They  strove  to  give  dignity  and  respect  to  everything ; 
to  make  no  damaging  admissions,  to  let  not  the  smallest  fact  creep 
out  that  might  be  taken  advantage  of.  It  was,  therefore,  perhaps 
too  much  to  expect  that  they  would  describe  the  factions  and  turmoil 
of  the  Revolution  as  they  really  were,  the  military  absurdity  of  the 
British  General  Howe  letting  it  go  by  default,  the  cruelty  and  perse- 


56  FISHER— MYTH-MAKING   PROCESS   IN  [April  18, 

cution  inflicted  on  the  loyalists  and  their  large  numbers.  So  they 
described  a  Revolution  that  never  happened  and  never  could  happen. 
A  whoop  and  hurrah  boys!  All  spontaneous,  all  united;  merciful 
noble,  perfect;  all  virtue  and  grand  ideas  on  one  side,  all  vice,  wick 
edness,  effeteness  and  degeneration  on  the  other. 

That  feeling,  the  boasting  and  the  exaggeration  were  proper 
enough  in  one  sense.  It  was  certainly  right  to  strive  to  build  up  the 
nation*  and  protect  and  dignify  it.  But  one  of  the  most  curious 
instances  of  the  way  the  feeling  worked  was  Jared  Sparks'  edition 
of  the  letters  of  Washington.  Sparks  was  the  President  of  Har 
vard  College,  a  man  of  intellect  and  learning,  the  author  of  an 
interesting  collection  of  biographies  of  American  worthies.  He 
felt  that  he  must  exalt  Washington,  and  so  he  rewrote  quite  a  num 
ber  of  the  Washington  letters,  struck  out  such  expressions  as  such 
and  such  a  thing  would  "not  amount  to  a  flea  bite,"  altered  some 
statements  about  religion  and  God,  left  out  whole  passages,  espe 
cially  those  in  which  Washington  told  of  cashiering  officers  for 
cowardice.  Sparks  was  an  interesting  instance  of  the  myth-making 
process  used  for  pious  purposes,  for  by  magnifying  Washington  in 
this  way  he,  no  doubt,  sincerely  believed  that  he  was  helping  reli 
gion  and  the  youth  of  the  country  by  setting  up  an  example  of  per 
fection.  Even  Washington  Irving,  as  Mr.  Adams  points  out 
("  Studies  Military  and  Diplomatic,"  pp.  166-168),  was  not  a  little 
inclined  to  myth-making.  Irving  gave  us  some  excellent  historical 
work,  for  which  we  should  be  grateful ;  but  he  could  not  altogether 
escape  the  taint  of  his  time. 

Jared  Sparks  was  unquestionably  a  man  of  integrity  but  he  was 
carried  away  by  the  feeling  of  making  a  good  showing  by  manufac 
turing  Washington  into  theoretical  perfection.  I  do  not  suppose 
that  he  for  one  moment  realized  that  he  was  doing  what  very  closely 
resembled  some  things  for  which  persons  in  lower  walks  of  life 
are  sent  to  jail.  He  had  a  rude  awakening  when  W.  B.  Reed  dis 
covered  the  whole  imposture  and  published  the  original  letters  with 
the  Sparks  improvements  side  by  side.  But  the  exposure  did  little 
good ;  for  similar  methods,  and  evidence-ignoring  on  a  much  larger 
scale,  were  used  through  whole  volumes  of  so-called  history. 


OTHER  IMPORTANT  WORKS 

By  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER,  Utt.D.,  LLD. 

Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times 

Two  volumes.  Illustrated  with  4  photogravures  and  numerous 
head  and  tail  sketches  in  each  volume.  Satine,  in  a  box,  $3.00; 
half  morocco,  $6.00. 

"The  author's  work  is  a  blending  of  grave  history,  amusing  anecdote,  extracts  from 
diaries,  and  graphic  word  pictures.  He  has  an  admirable  knack  of  liveliness  that  is 
quite  Frenchy  and  stimulates  the  reader  into  a  ravenous  delight.  Puritan,  Pilgrim, 
Cavalier,  Quaker  and  Catholic  are  made  to  re-enact  their  Colonial  parts,  and  the 
resulting  drama  is  full  of  action,  humor,  wit,  and  pathos." — Boston  Globe. 

The  Evolution  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 

Showing  that  it  is  a  Development  of  Progressive  History,  and  not 
an  Isolated  Document  Struck  off  at  a  given  time  or  an  imitation  of 
English  or  Dutch  forms  of  Government.  I2mo.  Polished  buck 
ram,  $1.50. 

The  Making  of  Pennsylvania 

An  analysis  of  the  Elements  of  the  Population  and  the  Formative 
Influences  that  Created  one  of  the  Greatest  of  the  American  States. 
I2mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

THE  FOLLOWING  VOLUMES  ARE  ISSUED  IN  THE  "TRUE" 
BIOGRAPHY  SERIES,  EACH  CONTAINING  24  ILLUSTRATIONS. 
OCTAVO.  BUCKRAM,  GILT  TOP,  $2.00  NET.  HALF  MOROCCO, 
$5.00  NET. 

The  True  Daniel  Webster 

"Dr.  Fisher  is  to  be  congratulated  upon  a  comprehensive  work  and  one  that  keeps 
the  essentials  of  his  subject  steadily  in  the  foreground.  Such  a  work  was  needed  and 
it  has  been  done  with  thoroughness." — The  Argonaut,  San  Francisco. 

The  True  William  Penn 

"Mr  Fisher  has  delighted  in  presenting  the  whole  story  of  this  delightfully  complex, 
high-spirited  man,  and  the  record  makes  most  excellent  reading,  and  gives,  besides,  a 
very  striking  picture  of  the  times  in  which  Penn  lived." — The  Interior,  Chicago. 

The  True  Benjamin  Franklin 

"Mr.  Fisher  has  done  his  work  with  painstaking  care  and  skill.  He  writes  clearly, 
frankly,  and  without  prejudice." — Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin. 

The  True  History  of  the  American  Revolution 

"Mr.  Fisher  argues  that  we  want  the  facts,  and  he  proceeds  to  give  them  to  us  from 
the  writings  and  testimony  of  actors  in  the  great  events,  making  a  book  that  students 
of  our  history  cannot  afford  to  slight,  as  it  is  the  result  of  careful  research,  and  is 
original  in  its  conclusions." — New  York  Tribune. 


RICHARD   G.    BADGER 

Publisher  BOSTON 

American  Education 

The  object  of  this  book  is  to  give  the  wayfaring  man 
some  idea  of  the  principles  and  methods  of  American 
education,  and  the  difficulties  and  controversies  that  have 
troubled  it.  Cloth,  $1.25. 


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